Why gas cylinder still anchors India’s middle-class kitchen

India bars LPG refills for consumers with piped gas connections amid Middle East war

Gas is a solid middle-class thing. Has been, and despite the ruckus in our neighbourhoods - by which I don't mean in West Asia, but across 'Make in Indane' outlets - it will remain so till the end of time. Or of gas, whichever happens first.

More irritatingly for me, gas has been a reminder of my middle-classness, something I have tried, over decades, to shake off like a booger under a table. I relieved myself of gas about six years ago when the induction cooktop came into my life, this time to stay. To be honest, I, too, quietly resisted. But as someone whose relationship to a kitchen is like Maradona's to cricket, my resistance was futile - and nothing to do with 'ease of cooking'.



Read more: Govt resumes distribution of commercial LPG cylinders in various states
Now, 'gas' is what the British Indian grammatically correct comedy duo Wren & Martin taught me to be a synecdoche ('sih-neck-de-kee,' children!): a figure of speech that uses a term for a part of something to refer to the whole. So, 'gas' is essentially a cylinder of gas when someone says, 'Has your gas come?' or 'We need to call the gas guy.' Unlike the American synecdoche that uses the same word, but signifies petrol or diesel - a la gas station, our petrol pump.

Read more: India bars LPG refills for consumers with piped gas connections amid Middle East war

So, the object of current shortage in people's lives is as much the short, squat, red cylinder as it's the liquefied petroleum genie inside. It's an object of the past, when there was just one TV channel, and protectionism wasn't American capitalism weaponised, but the guiding star of the Indian Left, with 'GATT!' - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - the neo-imperial horseman of global free trade as part of the Apocalyptic cavalry.

The empty cylinder's departure and a full one's arrival are like that of state governors - they all look the same (slightly battered, with a dent on the side), provide the same function, create the occasional kerfuffle among the 'What's cooking?' class, and are deemed non-negotiable, despite alternate options being 'theoretically' available.

I went about merrily for a couple of years with piped gas - not to be confused with the muzak that plays in elevators, which import substitutes Zyklon B with Kenny G. But when an electric induction cooktop arrived (along with its owner), there was a civilisational rupture, class betrayal, a near mutiny by 'the women in the kitchen who came and go-ed/ Talking not of Michelangelo, but vindaloo'.

There was only one legit reason for complaint: with one glass plate per cooktop, there can't be simultaneous cooking. (Multi-top induction cooktops were taken out of market for lack of demand.) And maybe the lack of an open flame that denies the person standing before the holy stove her or his favourite non-phone screen pastime of watching rotis rise.

But I come to bury the gas cylinder, not to praise the induction cooktop. The real bone of contention when it comes to opposing this particular idol of middle-class veneration is cultural. The cylinder is finite. Like our patience. It must be refilled. Like our aspirations. It is subsidised. Like our dreams. And it is always slightly dented. Like our self-esteem.

Like that Ganesh idol in the corner, this red badge of class courage, weighing a standard 29.5-29.7 kg (15.3-15.5 kg empty cylinder weight+14.2 kg gas weight), is a lingering emblem of aam aurat-aadminess. Our 'roots'. Rubbish!

No matter how far up the social mobility highrise you've reached, that metal guru lurking under the kitchen populated by your house help(s) gives the game away. It should have followed the footsteps of the red letterbox, the Ambassador, Dalda cans... But with its seductively handled rim that invites its devotees to twirl it along the ground, until the gasman comes to haul it off like some inflation-hit Atlas, 'gas' remains the millstone (long replaced by grinder-mixies) around your proverbial neck.

So, don't tell me about gas. I've done my fair share of checking the black knob, changing the green rubber pipe (which, ever since I tasted squid, reminds me of it), 'waiting for the man'. Hormuz Strait, or Horniman Circle, I'm done with gas. My life is happy, and antacids will suffice.